Evolation: This Moment is All We Have

Jung’s Journey Through Madness to Be Published

D.M. Cook — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:43:22 +0000

The “Red Book”. A feverishly-written, obtuse and deeply personal set of journal entries documenting one man’s descent into the bowels of his subconscious. For nearly a century, this remarkable story has remained a closely-guarded secret, despite it having given birth to one of the most significant psychotherapy methods in history.

That man, in case you were wondering, was Carl Gustav Jung; the Red Book is a documentation of the psychiatrist’s “creative madness” in 1913– during which he experienced vivid hallucinations and underwent a radical transformation as he grappled with his own inner world, emerging finally with the seeds of radical new theories of mythology, collective consciousness, dream interpretation and the imagination.

This text– along with Jung’s bizarrely vivid and intricate drawings– will be made available to the public this October, in what is sure to be a strange and unusual journey for readers.

“The text is dense, often poetic, always strange,” writes a wonderful New York Times article on the story. But there is no doubt– “Once it’s published, there will be a ‘before’ and ‘after’ of Jungian scholarship.”

Once again I am impressed by the courage this must have taken to complete– much less publish nearly 100 years later. Can’t wait!

10 Web and iPhone Apps that Need to Happen, Stat

D.M. Cook — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:45:23 +0000

Think every idea for an internet startup is taken? Think all the “good stuff” on mobile platforms has been squeezed out of the Web, so that all we’ll be left with are lolcats and iFart?

There are still hundreds of ways to provide solid value to people– and more all the time. To prove the point, I decided to spend an hour and think up some new ideas– none of which are (at this point) taken. Feel free to develop them as you wish
Here are ten examples of Web applications we still need–either desperately or just for an interesting use of technology:

An app to traverse and navigate bureaucratic websites (ie. taxation agencies, the DMV, etc.) so one is able to keep up with the status of their information– WITHOUT having to use those infuriating, horribly-designed sites.
A website that keeps track of where your food products are coming from (this may be fertile territory for future businesses). I know that certain things are already happening in this field, but there is PLENTY more work to be done– and it will only become more important in the future. It would be particularly great if you could someday snap a picture of the label on a tomato and figure out exactly where it came from and when.
An iPhone app with a really gorgeous interface that lets you order food delivery from multiple nearby restaurants (and saves frequent orders), automatically using your credit card (stored on file) etc.
An iPhone and computer app that shows you the actual, projected upload/download speeds of the networks near you (based on an algorithm involving signal strength, network status, and network type).
An app that uses the combined databases of multiple mobile-accessible websites, to collect an aggregate of activity in a given area and “reflect it” back to an iPhone in that area (one can see what types of activities are being done by people around them).
A program or website that handles RSS in a much more helpful way– putting stories in context through a “wrapper” that adds additional value and improves readability (Acrylic’s “Times” app is closer to what I’m envisioning, but it’s still very limited in approach)
7. An iPhone app for use by people with various mood disorders that lets them quickly chart and track their moods (and triggers) over the course of their life. There are numerous apps that do this right now, but they’re all TERRIBLE. Optimism, a Mac app that does this very elegantly, is immensely helpful but requires access to a computer every day to be useful (that may not seem like much, but it would be far more useful and accessible in a mobile device).
A new online, pervasive personal assistant in the vein of the incredible (and now dead) “I Want Sandy”, with Jott support or its own rewritten speech-to-text engine. Tell your iPhone to remind you of things, and have it sync up to a server somewhere so that you get to move on with your life!
A highly-sophisticated iPhone app that can train, listen and offer suggestions about instrument playing (”I hear what you’re doing wrong, try this”, or, alternately, a real “musical thinker”– like having your own composer assistant: “try these chords at the end instead” (quite ambitious, but potentially doable).
“Home”, a location- and preset-based app that works with your AirTunes, electronic lighting and heating systems, etc. to automatically trigger changes when you leave and enter your home– putting your favorite playlist on, turning the lights up, altering temperature based on weather forecast, etc. Would be best if it had multiple “moods”, involving both music and lighting, that could be switched between easily. This is slightly silly, but would be really cool– especially in day to day use.

And a bonus– just for good measure!

A website (and maybe an app, too) that tracks “the answers” given by multiple “authority sources” throughout history. ie. What is our purpose in life? Here’s what Islam says, here’s what Christianity says, here’s what Sufism says (in plain english); here’s what Steven Hawking says. This would work best if it covered many different types of questions, and made an effort to make the answers as similarly-worded as possible so one could explore the subtler differences between them.

Finally, a hardware bonus– why hasn’t ANYONE made a keyboard that works with the iPhone?? Do this and you will have MILLIONS of sales. I promise.

The Anatomy of Awareness, Part Two: What Is Consciousness?

D.M. Cook — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:21:55 +0000

This is the second excerpt from The Anatomy of Awareness, my 260-page book illustrating a groundbreaking, mindbending new theory of human consciousness known as Wave/Containment (recently completed, and currently seeking publication). Be sure to read Part One, entitled “Notes on Dying”. For more information, look here.

An old master was once asked, ‘What is the Way?’
‘The Way is right before your eyes,” he replied.

“Then master, why do I not see it for myself?” his student asked.

“Because you are thinking of yourself.”

Flustered, the student continued. “What about you: do you see it?”

To which the master responded: “So long as you are double, saying I don’t and you do, your eyes are clouded.”

The student nodded and departed, apparently satisfied with the answer. Yet after several days, he came back to the masters home and asked: “When there is neither I nor You, can one see it?”

The master smiled and shook his head in amusement.

“When there is neither I nor You, who is the one that wants to see it?”

For much of human history we have believed in the existence of “mind” as a separate entity–a belief repeated by the intelligentsia and religious leaders of many early societies, including the Greeks and Muslims. This belief, that the mind is immaterial and separate from the physical constraints of the body, has been named after Descartes: it is called Cartesian dualism.

Long before Descartes, however, Plato had insisted that there must exist an external realm of “pure thought”, separate from the physical, a realm one had to make direct contact with in order to arrive at mutually acceptable communication with others. Sir Roger Penrose, professor of mathematics at Oxford,reminds us that when two people successfully communicate, the words most often used are “Oh,I see!” But what is it that we see? What is the substance of, for example, a flash of insight?Penrose goes on to describe how Plato’s theory might explain these flashes of insight between two mathematicians, who are having totally different thoughts and who have experienced totally different and unrelatable lives:

When one ’sees’ a mathematical truth, one’s consciousness breaks through into this world of ideas and makes direct contact with it. [...] The mental images that each [person] has, when making this Platonic contact, might be rather different in each case, but communication is possible because each is in direct communication with the same externally existing world.”

Even if we were to take a leap and assume that Plato is right, and that there is some kind of external “idea world” out there, the real problem is in how our wrinkly little brains (resembling, as Alan Turing once said, “nothing so much as a bowl of cold porridge”) could somehow access and interpret it.In other words, even if we are to take a huge leap of faith and claim that the mind as we know it is cavorting around in some other dimension, there’s still the problem of why it’s so easy to get there.
But we can make this even more complicated! Consider, for example, how or why said porridge might claim to have an identity, a personality, a set of beliefs about itself and anincommunicable, subjectiveexperience of being alive, yet have absolutely no awareness that the entire time it does so, it’s really just a seething, gurgling bowl of porridge.

So we return to the question of consciousness, which has now become two: what is it and where is it?

The persistent and unavoidable roar of consciousness can be thought of as a ghost in the machine; it is not strictly our sensory perceptions, our decisions as to what to do next, our memories, or our emotions; it is, instead, the sense of single-pointed organization; the feeling that I am feeling, or remembering, or hearing; consciousness is a sense (right or wrong) that these are not separate and unrelated processes, but a single combined feeling of being me.

Roger Penrose argues that consciousness cannot merely be the image of oneself within oneself: a video camera aimed at itself in the mirror forms an image of itself, within itself. Does this make it self-aware?2. Consciousness, then, is not the content of your thoughts, nor the fact that you are aware of having them: it is the unification of these thoughts into a mysterious coherency, a raw awareness, that calls itself I. I is the one aspect of human experience that is intrinsically personal and totally incommunicable: you can talk all you want about how you felt, but no one else will ever be able to feel it the same way.

Evan Harris Walker, in his groundbreaking Physics of Consciousness, compares consciousness to the image on a television screen: the physical TV is analogous to ones body while the electronic circuitry within it represents ones brain (it is interesting to note that the Chinese characters for computer signify electric brain). Walker goes on to say that the image is the consciousness that lights up the set. The image is not the picture tube, not the phosphorescent screen, not even the light radiating from the screen [or the light that strikes our retinas]. Of course, there is nothing else there, and in fact the image exists only in our mind, which is why it serves our analogy (153). Its a better analogy than he may even realize, which well get to in a momentbut for now, think about this: if consciousness could be found to exist independently from any one persons brain, then logically it would exist independently of all brains.

If we are to use this analogy effectively and compare our brains to a television set, then we must understand where the channels come from (and, perhaps more importantly, whether weve paid our bill on time). A television set does not create a reality; it displays a subset of possible (previously-created) realities which vary due to the physical constraints of the set, the mood or tastes of the viewer controlling it, and of course, the availability of the channel in the first place.
Now were on to something!

Of course, the question of where consciousness comes from or how it shows up is so frustrating that many scientists simply refuse to bother with it, insisting that its an intrinsic property of the brain. While this might seem like a good place to start, its fraught with problems: what organ, neuron, or membrane actually creates consciousness? What chemical reactions give rise to it? Is something conscious as long as it contains those processes? Is it conscious only because of them? Weve seen the effects of pharmaceuticals and brainwave entrainment on ones sense of well-being, mood, even (potentially) their personalitybut these things are all part of an objective, analyzable and describable person and not the subjective me who inhabits that person. The subjective seems to vanish as soon as we start poking around. Where could it be hiding?

We cannot pretend that consciousness somehow bubbles up from a chemical soup within our brains; the chemical processes in our neurons are simpler, in fact, than those that burn sugars in our body. By the same token we cannot derive consciousness from the brains sheer number of calculations and simultaneous tasks. Even the most powerful computers in the world cannot achieve their higher-level functions without softwarecreated by othersthat allows for such a capacity. It is equally obvious that those tasks that handle digestion or the muscles of the heart, for example, are not conscious no matter how complex, frequent, or important they may be.

No, the conscious mind must arrive in some other form, some other software, separate but intimately linked to the workings of the brain. Many have posited the existence of an external force that creates consciousness3and cite electromagnetism as the most likely example. While these ideas might prove to be more accurate than previously thought, they have significant shortcomings as a theory of consciousness. In regards to the electromagnetic theory, it is important to note that the electromagnetic activity in our brains is far too specific, far too local, to result in any kind of grand unificationits more a splattering of isolated twitches than a roaring storm of activity. And electromagnetism is created by virtually everything in our bodiesfrom chemical reactions to the electrons in our cellswhich means that one cannot rule out any one of those processes as being the root of consciousness. The electromagnetic theory leaves us in that strange situation of concluding with less information, and more possibilities, than we started with.

One of our biggest problems in handling the so-called hard problem is that consciousness can be thought of quite literally as all things. I am not referring here to that postmodern belief, that all things are subjective; what I refer to is the inability of our consciousness to include any elements that exist outside itself. By necessity, all our sensory and intellectual information is processed by, and therefore includes elements of, our consciousness. That consciousness, however it arises, is in essence responsible for the existence of such information as information. We cannot talk about consciousness without our discussion being, at its most basic level, the result of consciousness. Yet Alan Wallace writes that science understands none of the central aspects of consciousness what it is, how it evolved, how it is generated by the brain, or even what is is for. In fact, if all we had to rely on for our knowledge of the universe were the theoretical and empirical tools of science, we wouldnt even know that consciousness exists in the universe.

But we know consciousness existseven if only through our discussion of it. As we conceive of and measure cosmic background radiation, Wallace argues, we thereby create the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe as we presently understand it. In this way we create the reality of human experience with the questions we ask.

Perhaps, then, weve been asking the wrong questions.

The roots of what we now refer to as scientific materialism received substantiation, and perhaps first suggestion, through the Biblical assertion of a God who created the universe before He created human beings7. This led to two implications: one, that the world human beings experience and inhabit exists prior to and independently of the human mind, and two, that man was created in the image of God and therefore his mind may be assumed capable of comprehending Gods universe. Understandably, the desire to understand such a universe requires ridding oneself of as much internal experience as possible and adopting a Gods-eye view, an objective lens through which one can attain a so-called divine perspective.

From there, the progression is clear. Modern science has given us a sequence of revolutions both large and small, all steeped in the close examination of individual, isolated processes. This examination has allowed us to land on the Moon, to feed more people than naturally possible, to communicate over great distances, and to see further and further beyond our planet. Through carefully documented experiments, we can discover new qualities of our world and share them with others, who can reproduce our results or find new ways to disprove them. Over the course of its enviable track record, we have become convinced that sciences external validity has made it virtually fool-proof something we certainly cannot say of ourselves. We can say that, in terms of the aforementioned divine perspective, science strives in slow and methodical steps to understand Gods universe as thoroughly as possible. But these steps, of necessity, involve severe reductionism: an experiment can test only one variable at a time. And in practice, external validity is not utilized to the extent we commonly believe: researchers must trust the work of their collaborators, or all scientific progress would cease.
Throughout the ages, numerous doctors and scientists have tried to find the so-called seat of consciousness. Francis Crick8, while being rushed to the hospital mere hours before his death in 2004, was busily drafting a theory that implicated the claustrum as the source of consciousness. Rick Strassman, like Descartes before him, postulated that the pineal gland11 was responsible for experiences of transcendence, oneness, and self-actualization. OKeefe (1986) believed that the hippocampus was what created the sensation of an ongoing consciousness, as it is used in the laying down of long-term memory. Each theory has come and gone, each ultimately failing to provide us with that secretive glow of consciousness.

At this point, I could stop to summarize the research involving neural correlates of consciousness, that is, the search for a neural activity within the brain that directly creates consciousness. But all such searches seem doomed to fail, confined as they are to an objective lens. Such searches will never tell me where in the flashes of my brain I am, because I am not there.

I am here.

And I am one half-second ahead of my brain’s attempts to know me. Forever.

The Anatomy of Awareness, Part One: Notes on Dying

D.M. Cook — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:23:04 +0000

This is the first excerpt from The Anatomy of Awareness, my 260-page book illustrating a groundbreaking, mindbending new theory of human consciousness (recently completed and currently seeking publication). Each excerpt will be linked here as it is posted. For more information, look here.

My first memory is of dying.

More specifically, the first memory I have is of losing consciousness; of bright light and a sudden, slow-moving darkness; of sensations and their sudden dissolution, of knowing that whatever this was, it was evaporating.

I stopped breathing six times within the first day I was alive, and I am not sure which one of these serves as that first, earliest memory. All I remember is the strangeness of that brevity, like a flash of light in pitch darkness.

Imagine a movie screen, completely dark, completely silent, erupting suddenly into a single kinetic flare of sound and light. Then back to darkness. The darkness is slow in coming, but the light is so quick you wonder if it just was a synaptic mis-fire, just a mistake.

Being scarcely born, I had no linguistic methods with which to approximate that confusion, except perhaps "where’d it go?" (much as a dog might "think"). But whether it can be conveyed in words or not, I remember it. It can be conjured up in any moment, crystalline, buried unchanging and unchanged in the very core of my mind.

I began to wonder, then, which other memories I would end up storing as cleanly, whose edges might not be dulled by time and age. This led me to wonder exactly what memories are, and what they are not. It led me to wonder at the ways memory—both our own and our cultures must shape our identities, our thoughts, and our beliefs. It led me to examine the ways our memory is a trap, a false record, a case of mistaken identity.

And then it led me to write this.

The first time I sensed that something might be a little different in my head was when I began meditating extensively in my freshman year. Teachers and fellow students of meditation would indicate that shutting off the mental chatter, of focusing on one thing to the eventual exclusion of other thoughts, was a difficult process. The most common complaint was always that "I cant stop all my thoughts!" I understood this difficulty, and yet, I couldn’t.

You see, I just don’t have that mental chatter. I never have had it. I can zero out my thoughts fairly readily, except in the case of particularly strong emotions (more on them later). Conversely, I’ve always found it both frustrating and intensely difficult to stay focused on a single line of inquiry, or a single type of stimulus—no matter how much I might be interested, awake, or curious. The more specific the focus, the more I have to fight to keep it in my head, to follow it all the way, to not let it fade. My default mode seems to be silence: thoughts, any thoughts at all, are strange intruders, beginning to disintegrate and fall away almost as soon as they arise.

The lone exception to this rule, in virtually every case, is music. I have songs stuck in my head for at least 90% of my waking awareness; there are extensive, elaborate soundtracks even in my dreams. Music forms such a significant chunk of my remembered experience that I cant help but feel my brain treats music differently than it does other memories—more on this later.

Curious about why my thoughts functioned this way, and how they might begin to be analyzed, I began an intense study of neuroscience. I was interested in the rhythms of my various states of consciousness—what preceded and dictated a given mental experience, which emotions triggered which shifts, and perhaps most significantly, the specific states of consciousness we know to exist.

Continue to Part Two: “What Is Consciousness?”

Hello, Esalen! + an update on my plans

D.M. Cook — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:36:06 +0000

Whew! What a crazy few weeks it’s been!

After wrapping up work on my senior thesis and staggering through a whirlwind graduation, I packed up my things and bid farewell to a college (and home) I loved dearly for four jam-packed years. There wasn’t much time to be sentimental, though– within mere hours I was on a plane, flying to California to join the work-scholar program at Big Sur’s Esalen Institute. There, surrounded by one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth, I spent a blissful month thinking, writing, taking pictures and slicing onions. I loved every second of it, and learned so much about myself in the process that i’m still trying to unpack the entirety of the experience.

But all such experiences must come to an end eventually, and I’m thrilled to move ahead with my life after graduation. Aside from the obvious (finding a place to live, getting a job or several) I have some big new plans for Evolation and my future work. I also have some fantastic things to show you!

Unfortunately, my computer (a beloved Powerbook G4) bit the dust this evening with a loud and dramatic death rattle. While I get that sorted out and step up to a modern machine, I’ll be a bit more delayed than I’d like in posting here.

In the coming weeks I’m thrilled to begin posting excerpts from The Anatomy of Awareness, my “magnum opus” project that attempts to understand–and advance dramatic new thinking about– the nature of consciousness. As a dual memoir– part novel, part scientific paper– the work is engaging and poetic while remaining incredibly complete and thorough. Drawing on a wide range of ideas and concepts culled from years of my own research, the book (and it is a book, at nearly 200 pages) confronts the “hard problem” of consciousness head-on, emerging with radical new ideas on the nature of the mind. It is my tremendous pleasure to begin sharing this work with you! One section, read at an open mic at Esalen, was greeted with incredible enthusiasm– and I can’t thank all of you enough for that praise and positive energy. It felt so good to be validated on a public level with a work that is so intensely personal and meaningful to me. Thank you all!

I also have a huge backlog of amazing photos left to put online– they too will need to wait until I can work again with my images. I promise, it’ll be worth it.

In the meantime, I’ll be hard at work manifesting an incredible living situation for myself here in New York: if you know anyone in photography, design, tech or editorial in need of assistance, let them know that there’s a dedicated and quick-learning college grad in need of a job!

Till next time..

10 Ways to Stop Wasting Time Online

D.M. Cook — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 04:37:28 +0000

I’m fascinated by the sheer volume of information on the Web.

Many of us are at least partly familiar with the “Wikipedia effect” (captured succinctly below by xkcd’s Randall Munroe). You start off on one, well-intentioned search, and minutes (or is it hours? or is it days?) later you’ve found yourself reading up on something completely unrelated. It’s hard to say what causes such scattered thinking: part of it is interest, certainly, but there’s more to it than that.

There seems to be something intrinsic about the nature of Web-based information that allows for such a freeform approach to learning new things. Decades ago, when television allowed us to flip channels and potentially explore new (and unrelated) things, we remained hooked in to the whims of the channel operators. We might discover something new on the cooking channel, but it was dictated largely by whatever the cooking channel happened to have on. For those of us who grew up without cable– wow!– that cooking channel might not even exist.

Now, of course, things are radically different from the various forms of entertainment and knowledge accessibility our parents and grandparents enjoyed. Virtually all information online is put on equal footing (though it might be filtered and condensed by blogs and Google) and there are no barriers to discovering content that might previously have been hidden for nationalist, cultural, lawful or ideological reasons. This is an open ocean, and we rely far more on others to direct our attention.

Ahh. That’s the problem, isn’t it? As Nick Carr wrote in his (now-famous) column for the Atlantic, “Google is making us stupid“. But Gary Small, director of the Memory and Aging Center at UCLA, has found that “digital natives” — those who have grown up with technology and spend 9 or more hours per day online (that’s me!) are superior at complex reasoning and decisionmaking, as well as being able to quickly parse new information.

“The next generation, as (Charles) Darwin suggests, will adapt to this environment. Those who become really good at technology will have a survival advantage – they will have a higher level of economic success and their progeny will be better off.”

All this brainpower comes, naturally, at the expense of interpersonal skills– which take place in a slower, more ambiguous and more “intuitive” realm. As Generation Y 2.0 asks, “Will the future stars be capable of knowing when to respond by email or phone?”

One can make the point that perhaps these skills are not as relevant as they once were, due to the increasing demand for skilled work from remote locations, but it would be hard to deny that we are losing something by trying to attend to so many incoming datastreams. As a report in the UK’s Telegraph writes, “Internet use could improve brain function and speed up decision-making, but it comes at the expense of empathy and the ability to think in abstract terms.” There’s only so much we can handle. I was struck by a quote from Marc Garnaut, whom I just started reading:

I can feel my system straining at the edges though, and I’m intensely interested in what happens when the seams burst. Does our head expand and expand until it pops, splattering all over the cubicle walls? (via)

Let’s not blame Google for our inability to focus, folks: we’ve forced this on ourselves by trying to take in more information than we can possibly digest. We need those filters, and we need to balance our rapidly-shrinking attention spans with the processing of timely and relevant information. While Small’s “digital natives” are clearly more adept at doing so than their parents, the volume of information–the noise crowding around the signal– will only increase. We, on the other hand, are already operating at or relatively close to our capacity.

As a self-confessed “internet junkie”, this is a lot scarier to me than it probably is to you (though if you’re reading this, I count you among the unsaved). Despite all this, I’ve found ten valuable ways to cut down on unproductive time online, while retaining the benefits of access to such incredible volumes of information.

This is one of the longest posts I’ve written to date, so be warned.

1. Decide ahead of time which questions you want addressed.

Easier said than done. My favorite technique here is to keep a note near my desk (or on my Mac) that lists all the specific questions I intend to look up in the near future. By writing them down and crossing them off just like any other to-do list, I am reinforcing that these are one-shot deals. My instinct to continue investigating is calmed immensely by doing this.

2. Use “real-world” information and resources as much as possible.

This includes making phone calls instead of sending emails, asking people at work or school before turning your question to “the masses”, or–and I can’t believe I’m advocating this– turn to direct communication systems such as Facebook or Twitter and get in touch with people first, before trying to conduct your own online research. More things are done through one-on-one communication than through any online system. Even if you don’t get the information you wanted immediately, you have involved other human beings in your quest–which they will remember, and continue thinking about–and often, the results are far better. Don’t use the Web as an excuse to stay stuck in your head–often, the real solutions present themselves through other people. As I wrote in an article for my last internship, “no one has ever gotten hired by using their computer to talk to other computers.” If your information/request/idea/resume doesn’t end up eventually making its way to a person, it’s as though you never put the time in.

3. Get your “info-fix” from sources you already know, not “novelty” aggregators. You’ll never escape them.

An article in the Wall Street Journal details the neuroscience behind our “novelty-seeking” web browsing. “When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those. You might call us ‘infovores’”, says Dr. Irving Biederman. The article goes on to demonstrate the problem:

For most of human history, there was little chance of overdosing on information, because any one day in the Olduvai Gorge was a lot like any other. Today, though, we can find in the course of a few hours online more information than our ancient ancestors could in their whole lives … technology is playing a trick on us. We are programmed for scarcity and can’t dial back when something is abundant.

I maintain that the biggest waste of time online is stumbling onto some heavily-hyperlinked, content-rich, brand-new site that appeals to you. I’m not telling you to stop exploring, but you should know that these types of sites (wikipedia, oddee, flickr, arts & letters daily, et cetera) are about the worst thing you can do for any kind of productivity. Give yourself a time limit. Bookmark it and come back to it later. Do anything that will keep you moving away from the computer (put the kettle on for some tea!) As Tupac said, “resist the temptation.”

4. STOP READING ONLINE NEWS.

You’d be amazed at how little you actually need to know about what’s going on in the world. News that matters will travel fast, through all the other communications channels you already use– you don’t need to actively seek it. If your job requires you to keep up-to-date on all the most recent happenings, then check the news as infrequently as you can– no more than once a day, and ideally less than three times a week. Cutting back on television is the single smartest thing you can do with your time, but cutting back on online news is almost as good.

5. And if you must read news, use RSS.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, lets you get the “stories” you want beamed directly to you, rather than having to search them out. It’s very useful, especially in taming the deluge of information. However, there are issues with using RSS. As Slate’s Paul Boutin wrote,

If I don’t check in every few hours, my RSS reader fills with unread blog posts. Rather than feel relieved that I can catch up on my missed surfing, that long list of bold headlines gives me the sensation that I’m hopelessly behind and won’t ever catch up. I’ve got enough to do at home and at work that I don’t need Web surfing to seem like a chore.

The best solution is to use RSS only for news that you know you’ll be interested in reading as text. RSS rapidly forces you to consider everything as a task (like email), so save the fancy, beautiful webpages for real browsing sessions; you’ll enjoy them more that way.

6. If you have an obsession, stop reading news about it and buy books instead.

Stop mooning over the specs on Apple’s new laptop, Nikon’s new lens, or what-have-you. Stop reading “pro tips”. Stop reading what people think of the new gadget or gossip. If you’re interested in something–whether anthropology, fashion, design, or tea– buy some quality books and spend some quality time with them. It makes all the difference in the world. You’ll remember more, you’ll feel better about the time you’ve spent, and you’ll stay away from the timesink of online debate and discussion.

7. Use the absolute best online sources for the information you need, and ignore the others.

Trendwatching– way back in 2006– called it “Infolust“. We want the power that comes from knowing we found the best deal, that we’re insiders, that we’re players.

Experienced consumers are lusting after detailed information on where to get the best of the best, the cheapest of the cheapest, the first of the first, the healthiest of the healthiest, the coolest of the coolest, or on how to become the smartest of the smartest. Instant information gratification is upon us.

If you use online sources for your information– and who doesn’t? — it pays to use the absolute best, most relevant, and most restrictive.

In the interests of putting everyone on something of a level playing field (with regard to perceived coolness), I’ll mention a few of the areas I think this advice is particularly relevant for.

Airfare – use kayak.
Local food / restaurant reviews - use yelp. (US and UK)
Comparison shopping – I still use pricegrabber, though if there are better (more complete) offerings out there, I’d love to know about them!
Cool things to do in your town - for many US cities, there’s flavorpill. I don’t particularly like citysearch but it has far more content (some of dubious value). For San Francisco, there’s the fairly-awesome SFStation.
Online music – create your own radio station (and hear new recommendations) on pandora, then buy music on amazon mp3. DRM-free, high-quality, cheap music in standard formats make this the best deal around for (legally) acquiring your music. Some is even free! Sign up for their twitter deal feed for even more kick-ass bargains– especially on older or more popular stuff.
Personal Development / help and advice with life problems – Steve Pavlina’s blog is the best there is. No need to go anywhere else!– his articles are lengthy, complete, and thoughtful.
Direct answers to your questions – forget Yahoo Answers, it’s garbage. Try Ask Metafilter for virtually anything from help picking a moving company to “what’s that movie with the dog and the bear in Alaska?” You can only ask one question per week, but the answers are absolutely top-notch.
Knowing about something awesome your co-workers don’t – there’s always the cool hunter.

8. Avoid debates in comments whenever possible.

This rules out the majority of slashdot, etc. Comments are a timesink if ever there was one. Not only do you read an article, but you read what everyone else thinks about it — and then argue with them? There’s a profound difference between commenting on a lone blog post and getting into a flame war with some nut in Thailand. (No offense to Thais, of course!)

9. Find your “digital curators” and stick to them.

For every field, there are people dedicated to separating the wheat from the chaff. It’s an important job, more so all the time, and I hope to do this for the emerging fields of holistic psychology, integrative neuroscience, radical sustainability and organic technology.

A good way to start is by finding what others in your niche are reading, then seeing what they link to (it’s almost always of higher quality). People don’t link to things unless they like them, and usually that means liking them more than their own work (ooooh, I just gave away the blogger’s secret, didn’t I?) Only problem is, you may be bored if your digital curator doesn’t update frequently enough. If that happens, you know you’re addicted. Get some fresh air, get a good book about your niche, and realize that curators exist for a reason: to put good content in front of your eyes. If you’re not seeing any new content, that means that a) there might not be more good content, and b) there’s no reason to replace the careful curation with inferior, lesser-quality news in order to have something to do. Embrace your boredom. Do something positive!

10. Keep track of how much time you spend online and for what initial reasons.

Did you go online to check someone’s last name, but end up playing poker with six random people in Europe? Did the last six hours pass by in minutes? Keeping a simple log — even just noting the time you went online today — is a great reminder of the passage of time. Optionally, you can note your reason for doing something (”email”, “twitter”, “wikipedia on JFK”) and see how far from the target you stray over the course of a day or night. Doing this is probably the most mindful way to stay in control of your late-night browsing sessions, and has helped me the most of all.

I hope this has been useful in curbing unwanted web surfing. These suggestions have certainly helped me (even though 95% of what I do involves Web technologies), and I hope they work for you. I’d really appreciate it if you passed on these tips to others you think might find them beneficial– and if you have any other suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. Now get off the Web!

Technorati Tags:
change, improvement, internet addiction, web, surfing, information, overload, info, habits, psychology, technology, online

Green Enough? The Biodegradable Credit Card

D.M. Cook — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:40:21 +0000

“The biodegradable Discover Card is another way for environmentally conscious consumers to do their part to help protect our planet,” says Kelly Tufts, Discover’s director of marketing. The card, which “breaks down 99% [...] in nine months to five years”, will leave less of an impact on the earth than the other 150 card designs Discover makes available for purchase. But in a market and economy wracked by increasing consumer debt ($5710 in credit card debt per consumer in December 2008), is this really what we need?

If Discover was serious about helping the environment (while encouraging rampant overspending), they could do many things: move their other designs to biodegradable plastic, donate 1% (or some other percentage) to a “green” cause, or work towards environmentally friendly practices in their buildings and corporate mentality (which would discourage overconsumption). This card, in contrast, strikes me as a confused attempt to reconcile two very different modalities, with little benefit to anyone.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

via Inhabitat and Next Nature.

Technorati Tags:
credit, nature, biodegradable, sustainability

Irony vs Idiocy in the Case of Fake for Real

D.M. Cook — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:23:36 +0000

The original Fake for Real game came in a box that was strikingly similar to the iconic Louis Vuitton pattern. Despite the fact that the pattern was replicated using Wingdings, a free font, the LV lawyers wouldn’t have it.

So what do you do with 2400 game boxes? Apparently in the Netherlands, you send them to specialized “destruction services“– who do exactly that (link is in Dutch).

Despite destroying the boxes, Fake for Real has some ballsy words regarding the case:

In response to accusations made by the LV lawyers, the creators of the FFR memory game have decided that – despite any future legal verdict there may be – a corporation with such low sensitivity for cultural design and artistic practice shouldn’t be granted the homage of being mimicked on the package of the FFR memory game. Luckily, there are countless other highly counterfeited brands, besides Louis Vuitton, that can be cited in the visual debate on fakeness and simulation.

The creators of the game disagree on the matter and consider it their ‘freedom of speech’ to create a debate on the visual culture that surrounds us all. The industry around the authenticity of brands is factual and a relevant cultural theme of our time. Nowadays children know more brands and logo’s than bird or tree species. For centuries artists painted trees and clouds because that is what they saw around them, nowadays they remix brands and logo’s because that is what surrounds them.

Especially for a brand like Louis Vuitton, that has so many historic connections with the art world, it is troubling to see them stretch intellectual property legislation up to a level of intolerance towards any cultural expressions regarding their brand. Are we now moving towards a society in which corporations can deeply penetrate peoples lives with their logo’s and brand strategies, while at the same time any artistic response or remixing of the same brands is prohibited because of copyright law? Now that’s called brand management folks!?

The 2009 Reboot: How I’m Staying Organized

D.M. Cook — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:01:05 +0000

Ever since I decided to make 2009 my best year ever I’ve known that I need a simple, consistent system to stay organized and a set of “safety nets” to keep things that way. Here, briefly, is my methodology:

I was a big fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, which I discovered about four years ago in high school. There’s more “productivity porn” on the Web these days than anyone knows what to do with, so if you’re looking to jump in to Allen’s system it’s worth having a knowledgeable guide. That link should help you out!

But there are a fair amount of problems with GTD, not the least of which being how narrow its focus is. It requires a LOT of thought and attention every day in order to function the way it’s designed to, and it won’t give you a whole lot of feedback on how much real progress you’re making (everything becomes splintered into bilions and billions of tiny tasks). It’s always much easier (and tempting) to let things slide, and that’s never a good idea.

The best way to combat this is to rethink and re-tweak the system, and Leo Babuata of Zen Habits has done exactly that in his Zen-To-Done” system. I find his ideas extremely complementary to my way of working. The idea of “Big Rocks“, or the concrete work for the week that you absolutely need to pay attention to, gives otherwise freeform and chaotic lists of tasks some necessary context. The same basic process of GTD (where you capture every idea you have whenever you have them, process them when you get home, then select and complete each action individually) remains the same. I highly recommend ZTD; it’s well-thought and incredibly useful.

Enter Software

To handle my lists and quickly enter new tasks, I use Things.app, a fantastic piece of (Mac OS X) software from Cultured Code. I’ve never (well, almost never) been as thrilled with a piece of code in my life. I love Things almost as much as I love actually getting things done. There’s an iPhone version too, which I’m dying to play with when I get one later this year.

For virtually everything else (my life-in-a-database), I use Evernote. Not only can I write notes to myself (including PDFs) and tag and organize them however I like, but those notes are automatically synchronized to a website where I can log in and read them anywhere in the world. I can even take pictures of a sign with a digital camera, upload them to the site, and the text will be recognized so I can search for it in the future. Wow. After trying a ton of related software, including Yojimbo, DevonTHINK and Notational Velocity, I think Evernote strikes the best balance of simplicity and usefulness. And of course, there’s an iPhone app already. Did I mention that it’s free?

A typical day on my Mac involves Things, iCal and NetNewsWire for reading news; Evernote for taking notes, Photoshop and Lightroom for my photography, Scrivener for longer, multi-part documents, Transmit for working with my web server, and MarsEdit for writing Evolation.

So that’s it for software.

A Nifty Trick to Organize a Room

I’ve been stuck on the concept of rational space for a few weeks now. I want my room to be rational, and I spent a few days at the end of last year coming up with ways to do it. One of the most useful habits I’ve started is to label EVERYTHING with the information that’s relevant to it. A stack of CD cases gets a label saying “these are just cases”, so that I don’t need to open them up and look at them when I see them in a drawer. My subwoofer has L and R taped onto the back so that I don’t have to squint at the 6-point-gold-text-on-black wiring diagram. The computer I need to fix has its serial number taped to the top. This all seems obvious, but when you have inattentive ADD it’s hard to remember all the minutae or be able to find what you’re looking for. The fewer chances to make a mistake, the better. What I’ve found is that in keeping things consistently labelled, the amount of decisions I need to make at any given time (where do I put this? what’s in it? why do I have it?) are reduced dramatically. The room practically organizes itself, since everything becomes self-contained. I still need to get better about putting things away, which is part of the 2009 challenge!

Next time, we’ll look at so-called Internet Addiction and the ways in which I’ll be leaving technology behind this year in favor of living real life. Don’t miss anything– subscribe to my RSS feed and make sure you get the biggest kickstart to 2009 you can!

2009: What Will You Do?

D.M. Cook — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:06:17 +0000

New Years’ Eve always fills me with optimism: the chance to look back and pick apart the year and decide where to focus next. The tradition of New Years’ resolutions certainly isn’t new, but I try to treat each New Year as a totally blank slate, cut off from past events and energies. Doing so has two advantages: one, that you define exactly what you want first, and allow that vision to sustain itself (and change, if necessary) through the events of the year. The second advantage is that it immediately places control in your hands, rather than in the vagaries of time. You’re entirely responsible for what happens.

This year seems particularly conducive to optimism: with the election of Obama, the global economic avalanche, and (on a more personal note) my graduation from college, the future is anything but certain. With all that ambiguity comes a special kind of potential: anything can happen now. I’ve also had a special feeling about the year 2009 for as long as I can remember, so I hope that intuition holds true.

I discovered a fantastic annual review exercise on Chris Guillebeau’s site, The Art of Nonconformity and have been hard at work elaborating exactly what I want to get out of 2009. I encourage you to do the same! Here are a few areas where I will be working particularly hard, as well as an area I’ve chosen to take a break on this year.

Areas to Focus On

Health

Vision – my computer-induced nearsightedness has bothered me to no end, and since my new puppy chewed up a very expensive pair of glasses, I’m electing to forego buying a new pair and instead use natural vision improvement exercises (which have worked wonders in the past for me, but I have not had the discipline to follow through on). I will practice these techniques every day for a minimum of 45 days to evaluate if they will help my eyesight.

Mind – after spending nearly a year conducting research for my upcoming senior project, The Anatomy of Awareness (more on that later!), I have learned a great deal about neuroscience and brain chemistry. With that knowledge comes the awareness of just how many things in my own brain are not working correctly: my focus, concentration, energy levels and motivation are seriously fucked. This year, I will conduct exhaustive trials of supplements and prescriptions to find what works best for me in these areas. I’m currently waiting on a shipment of piracetam, a “cognitive enhancer” proven beneficial in Alzheimer’s patients and in connecting the left and right brain hemispheres. I’ll post some information on that in the near future.

Diet and Exercise – I have occasionally been in great shape, so I know it’s not only possible, but relatively simple given the right motivation. This year I am going to try eating much fewer carbs. I am interested in learning more about Ayurvedic (Indian) dietary practices, especially since an Ayurvedic herb (Tulsi) just rescued me from a very serious cold.

Work and Finances

Career – I have had a rocky road of internships and part-time work during my college’s Fieldwork Term, but my experiences have been largely positive. I’ll soon begin working at my former high school and hope to turn this into a full-time position or find other work that is similarly rewarding and fulfilling to my purpose as a human being. Since I am leaving college this year as well, I have plenty of ideas of where I want to go and will need some time to whittle my options down!

I’ve also just completed 90% of the paperwork for launching Evolation as a small business (from now on known as Evolation Media, LLC) and I am excited about the prospects. I am still examining ways I can use the medium and content of this site to help others. I will be adding some slight redesigns to the site in order to better prepare it for the direction I have planned for it.

Organization

I am making an intense transition towards being more organized and aware of the myriad details of my life. I have practiced David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method before, and found it fantastic, but have not had the time or incentive to put it into full-time use. 2009 is that time. I will be documenting how I use his and other organizational systems, as well as offering tips on what’s helped me stay on top of all this!

Areas to Leave Alone

Spirituality – I have spent altogether too much time in this realm recently, and though I feel intensely connected, grateful, and conscious in my daily life, I have lost a fair amount of personal power because I have never really worked at being effective in the real world. Since I know I will be a spiritual person regardless of what I do, and that this is an innate and inseperable part of who I am, I will try to leave it on the back burner and focus more on interpersonal, entrepreneurial and physical work in the real world. In Steve Pavlina’s terminology, I am moving away from a fixation on Oneness (the combination of Truth and Love) and towards a focus on Courage (the combination of Love and Power).

I’ll be documenting all these trials over the coming months, so there will be much more info to follow soon. Have a happy 2009!